This thesis examines the trends in historical interpretation concerning the coming of the American Civil War. The main body of works examined were written between 1950 and 1976, beginning with Allan Nevins' Ordeal of the Union and concluding with David M. Potter's The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861. It also includes a brief survey of some works written after 1976. The main source for discovering the materials included were the bibliographies of both monographs and general histories published during and after the period 1950-1976. Also, perusal of the contents and book review sections of scholarly journals, in particular the Journal of Southern History and Civil War History, was helpful in discovering sources and placing works in a time chronology for the thesis narrative.

Historians often emphasize the physical features of battleterrain, weaponry, troop formations, earthworks, etc.in assessments of Civil War combat. Most scholars agree that these external combat conditions strongly influenced battle performance. Other historians accentuate the ways in which the mental stresses of soldiering affected combat performance. These scholars tend to agree that fighting effectiveness was influenced by such non-physical combat conditions as unit cohesion, leadership, morale, and emotional stress. Few authors argue that combat's mental influences were more significant in determining success or failure than the physical features of the battlefield. Statistical analysis of the 465 tactical engagements fought by twenty-seven Federal regiments in the First Division of the Army of the Potomac's Second Corps throughout the American Civil War suggests that the mental aspects of battle affected fighting efficiency at least as muchand probably more thancombat's physical characteristics. In other words, the soldiers' attitudes, opinions, and emotions had a somewhat stronger impact on combat performance than their actions, positions, and weaponry.

The Civil War and Reconstruction remade the United States. The defeat of the Confederacy, end of slavery, and postwar amendments to the Constitution inaugurated a new stage in national life. The most commanding histories of the period have presented the regional and national contests over the legacies of the war. Yet, the forces shaping the nation’s transformation and the effects this process unleashed were not confined within American borders. Drawing on British, American, and Irish archives, this dissertation reveals international influences and consequences at the core of the nineteenth-century reconstitution of the United States. The legal transformation of the United States after the Civil War required the assertion of American federal sovereignty in the international sphere. Fulfillment of key aspects of Reconstruction depended upon recognition by other nations and empires. Certain subjects, such as the terms of United States citizenship, were by definition international matters and necessitated coordination with the laws and policies of foreign powers. Other fundamental issues of Reconstruction, though not intrinsically international, also compelled attention to precedents, developments, and potential ramifications abroad. Agents of the United States government could not resolve the central issues of Reconstruction unilaterally. Their debates and decisions had consequences abroad, particularly in the British Empire, during a critical period of state-building worldwide. Each chapter of this dissertation examines international dimensions of a key question of governance and canonical subject of Civil War and Reconstruction scholarship – emancipation, land reform, democracy, citizenship, treason, and federalism – to gauge the far-reaching factors that shaped American policymaking and its results. The analysis demonstrates the multiple layers of the questions the war unearthed. It also establishes that changes in constitutional and other domestic law were inextricable from the nation’s relations with foreign powers, particularly Britain. This approach captures Reconstruction as the internationally disruptive event that it was and allows for a more complete accounting of what the Civil War and Reconstruction did and did not accomplish. Developments during these years destabilized the nation’s position and commitments in the international realm but did not provide a clear path forward. The transformation of the United States’ role and power in the international realm proved more gradual and restrained than many Americans and Britons anticipated. Divisions over the Constitution as well as challenges emanating from abroad impeded the assertion of federal power both within and beyond the nation’s borders.

The purpose of this thesis is to trace the history of one of the chief elements which entered into the securing of recruits during the Civil War. This was the bounty system as it was used by the National, State, and local governments.

No description available.

Note:

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.